USAF pilot

[saber59]

first id like to apologize for any spelling errors

im 14 and a freshman in high school, and i have wanted to be a pilot for as long as i can remember. my father was in the Air Natinal Guard as a laod master durning vietnam, flying in C-130s. i was thinking about joining the USAF after college.

and preforming airlifts in C-130s. does anyone know the process i would have to go through after i graduate high school? any help would be appericiated

thanks

[US Herk]

Well, you\'ve picked the right airplane - that\'s for sure!

If you want to be a pilot, you have to be commissioned. There are three routes to commissioning: US Air Force Academy (USAFA), Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), & Officer Training School (OTS).

The education you\'ll get at USAFA is unrivaled, but entrance can be challenging. A four year, full-time program of intense academic pursuits. If you meet admission requirements, you\'ll still need an appointment to attend. Start looking into this your junior year of high school & your grades better be very good.

ROTC is a 2yr or 4yr program done concurrently while you are attending a college with a program. Not all colleges have an ROTC program. Your choice of schools is pretty diverse though & odds are there\'s an ROTC program at the school you want to go to.

OTS is an application program for college graduates. Basically, it\'s a crash course on the military once you\'ve got your college degree. I believe it\'s still done at Maxwell AFB & is about 3 months long.

Once you have your commission, now you have to compete to be accepted as a pilot (actually, this will likely occur before you\'re actually commissioned). The demand for pilots ebbs & flows with many factors & some years, they need lots of pilots, so training slots are easy to come by. Other years, slots are much harder to come by. All of this is timing. You\'ll need to have high scores on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT) & a strong recommendation from your leadership. So it pays to work hard & be a quality person while you\'re a cadet.

Assuming you get a pilot slot and after you graduate & get commissioned, you\'ll eventually go to Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) (the time between commissioning & UPT varies widely from immediately to up to a year later - all timing again). UPT used to be a 54-week program, but the length is actually longer now based on where you end up. You\'ll do the first six months or so in ground school & the T6 Texan II (by the time you get in, all T37s will be gone). Since you\'re vying for a spot in the venerable Hercules, and assuming you get your choice, you\'ll most likely do your secondary training at NAS Corpus Cristi in the T44 (although some folks have made the transition from the T1 Beechjet). This is another 5-6 months. After that, it\'s off to Little Rock for C-130 school - I\'m not sure how long the program is these days as it\'s been significantly modified from when I went through, but expect 4 months here. If you\'re really lucky & get to go to a special mission C-130, you can expect a trip to Kirtland or Hurlburt & an additional 4-6 months of training. Finally, once you get to your unit, there will be a few more months of unit-specific, local-area, mobility, etc. training. All told, you\'re looking at 1.5-3yrs of training before you\'re let loose as a co-pilot.

Good luck.